The benevolent intentions and useful work of many of the men connected with these organizations is undoubted.

From this meeting with the capitalists, we went down into the slums to meet a dozen labor leaders. One of the. employers had just stated that there was no unrest among the laborers in Japan and that the workers would be quite contented if only left alone. The labor leaders laughed with scorn at this. Some members of the group said they were earning from thirty to sixty cents a day. One man was trying to support a family of eight on a little more than a dollar a day. He had been forced to give one child away to keep it from starving.

The next man, a Christian labor leader, then told his story. He had worked long hours for twenty-five cents a day at first, but finding it impossible to support himself and his family on this amount, he started to work overtime to increase his income. Although working long after the regular hours he could only make fifty cents a day. He found it difficult to support his family even by adding two or more hours to the regular shift of fourteen hours a day. At times on a change of shift, he had to work for thirty or more hours at a stretch. For two weeks straight he worked twenty hours a day with only four hours for sleep.

After fourteen years of such work, his health was broken on account of lack of rest and proper nourishment. He said: "My body was broken, my mind dulled, and my whole character was disintegrating. I had no time for my family, no interest in production or in anything else. I lost my skill. I had sunk with the masses of my fellowworkers into poverty and had become like a part of the machinery. Then the trade union movement came and I seized upon it with hope, for it gave us a chance to fight for higher wages, shorter hours and one rest day a week. But this is only our first step. Frankly, we are out to

completely abolish industrial slavery and in the end the capitalist wage system. They may not recognize our unions or acknowledge that we have any right, but we shall become strong enough to enforce our will. For myself, I am a Christian communist. If they have failed in Russia, that is because they have not had a fair chance with the invasion of the Allied armies and with the leaders of the world against them."

Another of the leaders said: "To be frank with you, we are all radicals and out to abolish the present system, because the government, the capitalistic courts, and the big business men are all united against us. We have arrived late upon the scene in the labor world, but we have started with advanced ideas and principles. Today we are persecuted, hounded, and betrayed, but in the end we will win. If a few of us meet together to discuss the calling of a strike, or even the forming of a labor union, the police can punish us on suspicion without trial. Several hundred. men in the labor unions have been thus persecuted. The police, the severe laws, "special orders" and all the forces of militarism and capitalism are used to crush our labor movement. The employers dismiss our leaders whose names are placed on the blacklists of the government and of the business men.

"Another injustice which we have to deal with is the labor spy system. Spies are scattered among the workers to learn their plans. They seek to stir up dissension, undermine the workers and leaders, and break up their unions like the Fascisti in Italy. The government and capitalists have used ruffians and gamblers, who are members of the so-called 'Nationalistic Society' which is used to fight labor. These ruffians make raids on the labor meetings, using violence and sometimes seriously injuring those who are taking part. Many have been wounded and several killed

by these tools of capital and the government. The police shadow our leaders and frequently raid our headquarters. But we are not discouraged. We will win justice in the end; we are out for no halfway measures; no 'welfare' or paternal schemes will satisfy us; we want nothing less than social justice. As it is, we have not been allowed to send our own bona fide labor representatives to the Labor Conferences at Washington or Geneva. The workers utterly repudiated the tools sent by the government and the capitalists on behalf of the laborers of Japan."

Following a dinner given by the managers of the Sumitomo Copper Works in Osaka, we met the labor leaders in their little stuffy, dirty headquarters to talk over industrial problems there as we had in Tokyo. Hard grinding toil, prison sentences and uncertainty of employment have left their marks forever on the faces of these men, and the injustice of the present system has left a bitterness in their hearts. One leader said: "The government will not allow the unions to use men for picketing. The strikers are not allowed to hold meetings, and if they come together for any kind of discussion they are prevented from saying anything pertaining to the strike or their rights. Freedom of speech is out of the question during a strike, for the policemen and hired ruffians break up the meetings and prevent the speakers from delivering their message to the workers. Here in Japan the capitalists are doing all they can to break the unions and prevent the workers from coming together. If any worker belongs to a union and is trying to get others to join, he is discharged at once.

"Christianity has done nothing thus far to help the labor movement and the majority of the workers feel that it has been a hindrance. The workers are not allowed to hold meetings in the churches where we can discuss our problems or have a place to come together for study. Nearly

all of the factory managers use Christian pastors or Buddhist priests to come to talk to them about their work and try to get them to see that they must not strike or cause trouble. The pastors are paid by the capitalists to use their Christian message to keep our workers down. For this reason the workers have no faith in religion as they see it today among the Buddhists or Christians.

"The industrial spy system in Japan is one of the worst evils with which we have to contend. Something like five thousand spies are hired by the government and the employers. These men are called "professional gamblers" by the workers. When a strike takes place these men go in to beat up the strikers. They pose as workers who stand for the country and the Emperor. They try to make use of their patriotism by fighting the men who are striking to make it appear that the strikers are traitors to their country." Just a hundred years ago we read that in England "the use of spies was common in all times of upper class panic."

Among the Japanese employers a small number are showing a genuine interest in and intelligent sympathy with the struggles of labor for better conditions. They recognize that no fair-minded man could defend present conditions in Japan. Men like Viscount Shibusawa and Baron Sumitomo have come forward with plans for real co-operation with labor. The Sumitomo Copper Works constantly sends men to America to study the most successful plans in operation there. They have shop committees composed of an equal number of representatives elected by the thirty thousand workers and by the employers, which meet to discuss hours, wages and conditions of work. With their eight-hour working day, their insurance against unemployment, retirement

Hammond, "The Town Laborer," p. 258.

allowances, accident policies, pension fund and a wage scale higher than any of the other factories in the Osaka district, the managers of this large steel and copper works are doing more to solve the problems of labor than the majority of leading concerns in America and England. But while Baron Sumitomo and nearly a hundred other employers in Osaka are providing fair treatment for their men, there are over 1,900 manufacturers in the city whose men receive little consideration. With profit as the chief motive, the workers are treated merely as cogs in a vast machine.

An open-minded employer in Nagoya said to us: "Labor organizations are sure to come in Japan. It is only a matter of time. In the conflict between capital and labor today the capitalists are sixty per cent to blame and the workers forty per cent. I hold the employers responsible for the trouble because we are trying to make too much profit and refusing to pay the workers as much as they deserve. They are also refusing to allow the men to have any voice in their own affairs concerning working hours, wages and conditions of labor. It is the refusal to recognize that the men who are doing the hard work are human that is causing the trouble."

In sympathy with these laboring masses are many young officials in all departments of the government. Long before Japan has to face any foreign foe she must reckon with her real problem: the rise of an insistent democracy and the demands of the growing radicalism of her discontented poor. The revolutionary upheaval in the West has made a profound impression on the masses in Japan.

An investigation in Tokyo showed that from the physical standpoint a steady process of deterioration of the workers is going on. Most of them come from the country. In the city they find bad air in homes and factories; food